Poets & Writers Theater

“I’m not there to serve the author or serve the text, I’m there to interpret it.” In this video, writer and translator Anton Hur speaks about the role of the translator, Korean literature, and his work on the novel Counterweight (Pantheon, 2023) by the pseudonymous South Korean science fiction author Djuna.

“What I’m hoping is, ten years from now, a young Puerto Rican poet on the island or somewhere else knows that this is a possibility, that living a life with and through poetry is an honorable way of engaging with the world.” Ricardo Alberto Maldonado, the first Latino executive director and president of the Academy of American Poets, reflects on why he began writing and the importance of expanding the linguistic diversity of poetry in this PBS NewsHour interview with Jeffrey Brown.

“Books sustain us. Books inspire us. Books fortify us. Books help us become who we are,” says poet John Keene in this video featuring National Book Award–winning authors—including Tess Gunty, Megan McDowell, Imani Perry, Samanta Schweblin, and Sabaa Tahir—speaking about why they believe books matter for the National Book Foundation’s Read With NBF program.

In this virtual event sponsored by the University of Toronto and moderated by Ohla Khometa, contemporary Ukrainian poets Alex Averbuch, Daryna Gladun, Iya Kiva, Julia Musakovska, and Oksana Maksymchuk share their poems and discuss the ongoing war in Ukraine, and the displacement and loss they’ve experienced.

In this CBS Sunday Morning interview, renowned Chilean author Isabel Allende discusses her family history, the inspiration behind her courageous and passionate characters, and her latest novel, The Wind Knows My Name (Ballantine Books, 2023), translated from the Spanish by Frances Riddle.

“All the books I’ve written in the past were books that I decided to write suddenly while I was writing something else.” In this London Review Bookshop conversation, French writer Édouard Louis speaks about his writing process and discovering the parts of his mother’s life he did not know for his new memoir, A Woman’s Battles and Transformations (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2022), with translator and novelist Tash Aw.

In this 2019 Louisiana Channel interview, Man Booker–winning author Han Kang speaks about the origins of her writing from her love of books to her questions about humanity. “When we are confronted by the horror of humanity, we have to question ourselves,” says Kang. Her new novel, Greek Lessons (Hogarth, 2023), translated from the Korean by Deborah Smith and Emily Yae Won, is featured in Page One in the May/June issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.

Watch this virtual multilingual reading of poetry in translation presented by Words Without Borders in partnership with the Academy of American Poets. Enjoy poetry in Arabic, French, Malay, Spanish, and English, with readings by poet Jeannette Clariond and translator Samantha Schnee, poet Zahid M. Naser and translator Pauline Fan, poet Samira Negrouche, and translator Kareem James Abu-Zeid.

Looking for a new book to read? See the shortlisted titles for the 2023 International Booker Prize, which highlights fiction from all five continents translated into English. The six books include Boulder by Eva Baltasar, translated from Catalan by Julia Sanches; Whale by Cheon Myeong-kwan, translated from Korean by Chi-Young Kim; and The Gospel According to the New World by Maryse Condé, translated from French by Richard Philcox.

In this London Review Bookshop event, Fernanda Melchor reads from her novel Paradais (New Directions, 2022), translated from the Spanish by Sophie Hughes, and discusses her work and signature writing style with author Nicole Flattery.

Watch this 2018 reading and conversation with Nobel Prize–winning author Annie Ernaux celebrating the English publication of her book The Years, along with translator Alison L. Strayer and Seven Stories Press publisher Dan Simon at the Shakespeare and Company bookstore in Paris, France.

In this video, finalists for the 2022 National Book Award in poetry, fiction, nonfiction, translated literature, and young people’s literature read excerpts from their honored works. The event, hosted by writer Saraciea J. Fennell, is presented in partnership with the National Book Foundation and the NYU Creative Writing Program.

“Black of pure tint, I cry and laugh / the vibration of being a black statue; / a chunk of night, in which my white / teeth are lightning.” In this video for the Favorite Poem Project, bilingual special education teacher Glaisma Pérez-Silva reads Julia de Burgos’s poem “Ay, Ay, Ay, de la Grifa Negra,” translated from the Spanish by Jack Agüeros.

“I spent most of my life trying to blend in. / Try to fade into the background. / Try not to be noticed.” Abby Orbeta reads their poem “Chameleon” (“Hunyango”), which has been translated into Filipino, for this Ours Poetica video, sponsored by Complexly and the Poetry Foundation.

Irish poet and novelist Martina Evans reads Wisława Szymborska’s poem “Could Have,” translated from the Polish by Stanislaw Baranczak and Clare Cavanagh, in this short film directed by Matthew Thompson and produced by the Adrian Brinkerhoff Poetry Foundation for their Words We Share series.

In this virtual reading and conversation examining the multitude of identities, authors Usha Akella, Manuel Muñoz, and Suzi Q. Smith read their work and speak with Aruni Kashyap for the 2021 Jaipur Literature Festival Colorado. Akella, cofounder of the Matwaala collective, is featured in “Building Solidarity Through Poetry” by Swati Khurana in the May/June issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.

In this installment of the Creative Writing and Critical Thought series, novelist Katie Kitamura, author of Intimacies (Riverhead, 2021), speaks with professor Emily Apter, author of Against World Literature: On the Politics of Untranslatability (Verso Books, 2013), about the complexity and consequences of translation and the paradoxes and power of language. The series is cosponsored by New Literary History and the Center for Fiction.

“Everything is untranslatable if what translation means is making something new that stays the same. But that’s not what translation is,” says Jennifer Croft in this House of SpeakEasy video about her origins as a translator and what led her to the Polish language and to work with author Olga Tokarczuk. The Man Booker Prize–winning translator is featured in “Giving Translators Their Due” in the March/April issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.

“When you start writing, you start from your own readings.” Moroccan author Yassin Adnan speaks about how writing begins with reading and discusses the seeds of his first novel, Hot Maroc (Syracuse University Press, 2021,) in this virtual event with translator Alexander E. Elinson and author Laila Lalami, hosted by Elliott Bay Book Company.

“I believe that the best books aren’t those that entertain us. The best books are those that hurt us.” In this 2018 interview at the Louisiana Literature festival in Denmark, Italian writer Domenico Starnone talks about the pleasure and exhaustion of writing and refers to a letter Kafka wrote about the importance of writing books “that are like an axe that breaks the frozen chest.” Starnone’s novel Trust (Europa Editions, 2021), translated from the Italian by Jhumpa Lahiri, is featured in Page One in the November/December issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.